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Pat Monahan

The Monahan File

Train lead singer Pat Monahan should be familiar to NASCAR fans. He sang the national anthem for the 54th running of the Daytona 500 last February, and the entire band performed hits from its most recent album “California 37” at Daytona in July.

Monahan, 43, and the band Train climbed to the top of the pop charts at the turn of the century with the smash hit “Drops of Jupiter.” In 2006, after two more albums, the band took a hiatus that stretched to 2009. They roared back on the strength of the infectious “Hey Soul Sister,” which has since become the eighth most downloaded song in history.

Train performed at the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Awards Banquet in Las Vegas.

…Playing NASCAR races :

“In the beginning of our career, not knowing what kind of band we’d be, this is surprising. But as we’ve developed into a family-, American-style band, I love it. It makes a lot of sense now.”

…NASCAR:

“Before we played at Daytona, I was only familiar with the sport as a distant observer. I grew up a big Pittsburgh Steelers fan and then moved to San Francisco and became a Giants fan. So, I think NASCAR is a logical next step as a sports fan.”

…When he realized he could sing:

“I originally wanted to be a drummer. I think I was 16 and I had created enough small bands with high school kids who were all afraid to try singing that I finally just said, ‘Here, I’ll do it.’ And after enough of hearing, ‘Hey, man, you’re really good at this’ and your peers like what you do, you get the courage to really do it.”

…Performing in front of still-filling grandstands:

“I hope the American people recognize the service I did in knocking Ricky Gervais from the top spot. He’s foreign. I brought the title back to America, where it belongs.”

…Cars that attract dudes:

“The lack of observers is much more noticeable. It’s like you’re looking at all the red seats. But the more we played, the more people there were that gathered around us until it seemed like there were tens of thousands of people. And that was really, really great for us.”

…Disastrous Gigs:

“We did a lot of shows in big, weird barns in places like Oklahoma, opening for bands like Def Leppard. You can imagine how weird that was.”

…Playing the hits:

“It’s hard to perform a song that everyone is singing back to you without enjoying it. I remember going out with Ben Folds Five and they never played ‘Brick’ on purpose. But man, that’s one of the great songs of that time. That made no sense to me. I was never able to do that.”

…Playing cover songs:

“We play more covers at private events than in public events. We can get away with it better and it’s a lot of fun. But when we play to our fans, I don’t think they want to hear those covers anymore because it takes the place of their favorite song that they didn’t get to hear. If I went to see James Taylor and he did songs from Led Zeppelin, I’d be disappointed.”

…Being back on the road after a three-year layoff:

“Those couple of years off were growing pains. They were either going to be the pains of a band growing and getting to the next place or the goodbye years. We didn’t know what they would be. After enough time away, we realized that we disliked each other because we spent too much time together.

And when you look back, a lot of us think, “Boy, I was tough to get along with.” But that’s tough to say when you’re a young man and you think you’re the coolest guy in the band.
We were able to focus on, “Hey, if the three of us reboot this band and get rid of some of the personalities – not just within the band but the people in the business – maybe we could actually enjoy this.” Because none of us really dug it after a while. I called these guys from LAX, asking them if they were ready to get the band back. And they were like, ‘Yeah, let’s go.”

And now, when we play, we’re up there as friends.”

…Tough Crowds:

““Ben Folds Five” is really a great band. But their crowd hated us. On a level of, “Wow, I really hope, before they’re done, somebody gets shot.” They really were hoping to see a death on stage.”

Jeff Foxworthy was attending college in his hometown of Atlanta when a friend urged him to give stand-up comedy a try. Foxworthy did and went on to become a comedic powerhouse with his “You might be a redneck” one-liners and the popular Blue Collar Comedy franchise.

David, who first picked up a guitar at age 12 and formed his first band at 15, breezed through the early rounds and went on to win the seventh season of the show in 2008 — separating himself from the pack with notable performances of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”

Ernie Brown Jr. – a.k.a. Turtleman – has been diving into Kentucky’s murkiest ponds in search of snapping turtles for more than three decades.
Now, Brown captures everything from boar, snakes, raccoons and wild coyotes with a team that includes banjo-toting sidekick Neal James.

In the 20 years since his hit song “Ice, Ice Baby” became the first hip-hop song to top Billboard charts, Vanilla Ice has weathered the ups and downs of his fame. Today, the 44-year-old is more than just a faded pop star. He still records and performs his music but he’s also the face of a growing home improvement franchise on the DIY Network. His show “The Vanilla Ice Project” follows him on radical renovations and a second series “Ice My House” allows him to outfit contest winner’s homes with outlandish technology and accessories.

Two years ago, Lauren Alaina was balancing school and a job at Cici’s Pizza – all while she nursed her dream of singing for a living. Enter: “American Idol.”
The precocious and charmingly Southern chanteuse wowed the show’s judges and audiences on her way to a runnerup finish in the tenth season of the show.

Born on Chicago’s South Side, Neil Flynn began acting while studying speech at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.
Early in his career, he appeared in plays at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater and performed with the Second City Comedy Troupe.
Flynn got his big break on the sitcom “Scrubs” in 2001. Although he auditioned for the role of Dr. Perry Cox, Flynn was cast as The Janitor and spent eight seasons tormenting Dr. John Dorian, played by Zach Braff.

Richard Hammond loves his main job. A self-professed car nut, he’s been fortunate enough to drive everything from a Lamborghini Aventador to a Renault Formula 1 car as co-host of BBC’s “Top Gear” — the world’s most popular automobile show.

Gary Sinise discovered acting while in high school and soon after co-founded Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company in the mid-1970s. After gaining notoriety for producing and acting in Steppenwolf productions, Sinise directed and starred alongside Steppenwolf castmate John Malkovich in “Of Mice and Men” in 1992.

A native of the Detroit area, Tim Allen has spent his life tinkering with cars — whether it was in his high school shop class or as the enthusiastic-but-misguided Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor on his hit 1990s sitcom “Home Improvement.” With his amazing success Allen got the chance to live out his dreams. He teamed with Steve Saleen to race 500-hp Ford Mustangs in SCCA races.

Twin brothers Randy and Jason Sklar (Jason wears glasses) have built a career at the nexus of comedy and sports. As the stars of the now-defunct ESPN Classic show “Cheap Seats,” fill-in hosts on “The Jim Rome Show” and now the hosts of their weekly podcast “Sklarbro Country,” the Sklar brothers never have a hard time finding humor in the often-quirky sports world.

A native of small-town Poyen, Ark., Justin Moore grew up singing in his church choir but didn’t start performing country music until he was 18. “I always knew I could sing. And growing up in a town of 300 people, you were the weird one if you could sing on-key,” the 27-year-old singer says. “It was one of those things that once I started, I just knew that was what I wanted to do.”

As executive producer and host of “Man v. Food Nation” on Travel Channel, Adam Richman indulges in two of his favorite pastimes: eating and performing. A native of New York City, Richman earned his master’s in fine arts from Yale University’s School of Drama. But it was during his undergraduate days at Emory University in Atlanta when he started writing a food journal.

Composed of siblings Kimberly, Reid and Neil Perry, The Band Perry has exploded on the country music scene with its self-titled debut album and smash single, “If I Die Young.” As children, the Perrys were weaned on rock and country music — claiming equal allegiance to the Rolling Stones and Loretta Lynn. But though the three have performed their entire lives they didn’t start playing together until 2005.

As host of SPEED’s “The Car Show,” Adam Carolla has many NASCAR fans’ dream job: He gets paid to drive and talk about cars. But the new show is one of many vehicles for the voluble Carolla’s famously sarcastic take on the world. After a long career in radio and TV Carolla was named as Howard Stern’s replacement after the shock jock switched to satellite.

You likely know Jason Lee best from his lead role in “My Name is Earl,” but for the last two years, the versatile actor has starred in TNT’s “Memphis Beat.” Lee plays police detective Dwight Hendricks, who considers himself the keeper of Memphis. His character inherited a passion for music and an instinct for solving crimes from his father, an officer who was killed in the line of duty when Dwight was a young boy.